Mark Zilberberg holding the citation notice that he received from the city.
David Crane — Staff photographer

Van Nuys resident Mark Zilberberg spent most of his life running an auto shop on a quiet corner in Valley Glen and says he never had a scrape with the law.

But in September, the 66-year-old was hit with a criminal complaint by Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer, charged with renting to an illegal pot dispensary. Bud Stop, a seller of “top-notch medication,” according to Yelp reviews, rented a space owned by Zilberberg, next to his auto shop.

“All of sudden in my old age I became a criminal,” Zilberberg said.

Since voters passed Proposition D last year, police and city attorneys have cracked down, filing a flurry of lawsuits against dispensary owners. At least 100 dispensaries have closed since the law went into effect, Feuer said at a press conference earlier this month.

But raising complaints from property owners, the City Attorney’s Office is also going after landlords like Zilberberg. More than 120 property owners and their business entities have been charged with criminal complaints, data provided by Feuer’s office shows. The aggressive stance is welcomed by some neighborhood groups, but criticized by property owners, some of whom are paying thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees.

“There is such a confusion,” said Joseph Trenk, a Van Nuys-based attorney who has represented 10 landlords against the city. “These are the strangest cases I have ever seen.”

No one disagrees that Proposition D, passed last May, caps the numbers of pot dispensaries at about 135 in Los Angeles. The new law was authored in reaction to a proliferation of pot shops, with 1,000 dispensaries operating throughout the city, according to some estimates. Crowds followed the stores’ opening, leading to blight, and in some cases, crime.

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In 2010, an Echo Park dispensary employee was shot to death during a robbery. Earlier this year, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window of a South Los Angeles dispensary.

Feuer campaigned for city attorney last year vowing to rein in the dispensaries. Asked about property owners’ complaints, Feuer said in a statement that voters passed Prop. D because “they wanted clarity in regulating the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles.”

“It is my duty as City Attorney to uphold the will of the voters and that is what we are doing in aggressively enforcing Prop. D,” Feuer said.

Landlords question the city’s tactics. Trenk represented a client who received a warning letter from Feuer’s office. The landlord evicted the dispensary. He was still hit with a criminal complaint, the client, who asked to remain anonymous, claims.

Asked if landlords are being charged even if a dispensary has vacated, Feuer said in a statement: “Our goal is to get unlawful medical marijuana businesses to close. We decide whether to file against a property owner for allowing a medical marijuana business on his or her property on a case-by-case basis.”

In other cases, landlords claim they never received a warning letter — only a criminal complaint. Feuer spokesman Rob Wilcox disputed that assertion, saying warnings are sent to all parties.

Local business owner Cindy Cleghorn says the city’s crackdown is working in places like Sunland-Tujunga, where the area’s 18 dispensaries have been whittled down to 10. A pot store drove out a popular restaurant, Numero Uno Pizza, which closed after smoke from the next-door dispensary drifted through the walls and annoyed the owners.

“They should be aggressive,” Cleghorn said. “The neighborhoods don’t get improvements because the landlords don’t live in the area, and don’t care about property. They just want their rent money.”

“We had too many dispensaries,” agreed Bradford Neal, a Venice property owner charged by Feuer for renting to a dispensary. The city dropped his case, he believes, because he’d already served his tenant an eviction notice, and filed a civil lawsuit against the shop.

Bud Stop paid $1,200 a month to rent Zilberberg’s space, he said. After Prop. D passed, the dispensary owners showed Zilberberg an official-looking certificate and persuaded the landlord the store was legal, he said.

City attorneys charged Zilberberg and his wife, Rachel, but offered to drop the case against Zilberberg’s wife — she is listed on the property — if he pleaded no contest, and paid a fine of about $2,000. Zilberberg reluctantly took the deal. He spent about $5,000 on fines and legal fees, and now is on probation, he said.

The city’s Office of Finance has issued more than 300 business tax certificates to dispensaries since the law passed, and some dispensaries may be using the documents to pass off as legal. Zilberberg’s tenant, Bud Stop, doesn’t appear to have filed for a certificate.

But a handful of pot shops sued by the city appear to have applied for the Office of Finance document in the last eight months, records show. In those lawsuits, property owners were also charged.

Issuing tax certificates adds to the confusion, because “on the one hand, the city is collecting money, and on the other hand, they’re going after (landlords),” said Etan Lorant, Zilberberg’s attorney,

“The way they’re handling it is wrong,” Lorant added. “They’re going after small mom-and-pop landlords with no sympathy.”

Feuer maintains he won’t ask the Office of Finance to stop issuing the certificates. Instead, his office sends warning letters to dispensaries recently issued a certificate.

Southland Regional Association of Realtors’ representative Mel Wilson is urging his group’s 10,000 members to educate themselves about the new law, saying the criminal charges bring it to a “whole other level.”